


A Heaven More Like This

by miladyshakespeare



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Book/TV Hybrid, Cottagecore, Domestic Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Wings, so much food, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 20:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20234080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miladyshakespeare/pseuds/miladyshakespeare
Summary: ”I wanted to hurt them, you know, for so much as daring to hurt you... It’s been a very long time, angel. In 1250 you called me dear for the very first time. This is cowardly, but I don’t know how to stop.”On New Year's Day, Aziraphale asks Crowley to come away with him to a cottage in a quiet Welsh village. Crowley says yes, even if it's what Aziraphale expects, even if his feelings for the angel took root before the beginning of time. He's managed himself for millennia, what is another year?





	1. PROLOGUE: New Year's Day

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is a love letter. To who I was as a teenager in this fandom, to Neil & Terry for the book and show, to Michael for the joy. And to my most ineffable wife, whose input and ideas are woven into the very stuff this story is made of as much as my own. Angel, I’m so very glad to share worlds with you, you deserve all of them.

> _ Few hearts to mortals given _
> 
> _ On earth so wildly pine; _
> 
> _ Yet none would ask a heaven _
> 
> _ More like this earth than thine. _
> 
> _ Then let my winds caress thee; _
> 
> _ Thy comrade let me be — _
> 
> _ Since nought beside can bless thee, _
> 
> _ Return and dwell with me. _
> 
> from Shall earth no more inspire thee, E. Brontë

Church bell chimes carried through the crisp January air, and the demon Crowley decided, mid-step, to replace his slim charcoal-grey coat with a thicker one. It was, as always, a well-tailored affair with black sheep’s fleece adorning the collar. The frozen gravel path was mute under his foot when he set it down. Beside him, the angel Aziraphale raised an eyebrow at the display, but kept his gaze ahead.   
“I never quite feel it, you know,” Crowley said. “Even with everything that this part of the world puts into it, the new year never _feels _like anything.”  
“Personally, I find that today feels rather nippy,” Aziraphale said cheerfully.  
Crowley found the curve of the angel’s mouth particularly annoying and groaned. “You’re in a good mood,” he said, not quite meaning to observe this out loud.   
Aziraphale looked at him, finally, and smiled warm enough to encourage the air between them above freezing.   
“Why my dear, am I not always?”   
Crowley didn’t reply, just stared Aziraphale down until the angel let out a short huff of a laugh and shook his head.   
“And here I was thinking that my presence was a positive impact,” he said. 

Crowley kept his smile hidden behind his popped collar as the path wound through a bandstand. His eyes skimmed over the frosted grass, the trees and park beyond. It took him a moment to notice that Aziraphale was gone. When he turned, the angel was standing under the roof, one hand resting against a beam. Something about his posture made Crowley lower his sunglasses while he retraced his steps back down the path. The angel looked the way he did when he had set his mind on something.   
”Come away with me, Crowley,” Aziraphale said before Crowley made it over to him. 

Crowley had been wrong about the new year. It was a good look on Aziraphale, the now clear tells that _ this had been planned. _ The way he spoke as if he had been holding his breath, the tap of his fingers against the beam, the hint of one of the dimples by his mouth, and his deceivingly calm expression.   
"No good restaurants in Alpha Centauri yet, angel,” Crowley said. He was quickly becoming light-headed with the way Aziraphale was looking at him. Like he wasn’t expecting Crowley to turn him down.   
”Then somewhere closer?” Aziraphale said, a shade of deep warmth at the end of his words.   
They were still a bit of a ways apart, but Crowley couldn’t bring himself to move. It was as if his earthly form had lost all memory of how walking worked.   
”Did- did you have ssomeplacce in mind?” he asked.


	2. PART ONE: Spring

The garden at the front of the cottage was small. A bird cherry tree stretched its branches over the stone wall facing the street, and the air was sweetly floral. Crowley watched Aziraphale run his fingers idly over the shiny dark leaves of a rhododendron. They were both quiet, Aziraphale from what Crowley could only assume was nerves, and Crowley because he had already tried everything from casual conversation to old, trusted arguments in the Bentley. All attempts had quickly died out with the slight bounce of Aziraphale’s knee and his tendency to get lost somewhere in the landscape beyond the window.   
Just beyond the gate, Aziraphale hesitated. Crowley brushed past him, fingertips grazing his elbow on the way. He was only a couple of steps ahead when the light blue door swung open and a man in his seventies stepped out to greet them.   
“Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley I presume? Welcome, I’m Gar Collier. I trust the drive was well and good?” He reached out his hand and Crowley shook it.   
“It was,” Crowley said amicably. “I’m Anthony Crowley and this is Aloysius Fell, it’s a pleasure.”   
The greetings, or perhaps the name Crowley had just presented (if he were to do the honours, he preferred to get creative), appeared to finally shake Aziraphale from his anxious contemplation. His face lit up in a smile as he greeted the caretaker and he walked ahead of Crowley as they were led into the building. Crowley relaxed with this fact and fell into step behind the other two. 

The home was bare of furniture, Collier explained, as the previous owner’s children hadn’t wished to keep any of her belongings. Although neither of them pressed, it was clear that Collier did not care much for these mentioned children but he and the owner had been close friends since childhood. Collier was a man with strong opinions but few words, and after giving them the rundown he departed for a half hour to allow their own exploring.  
Aziraphale and Crowley ventured through the ground floor first. Entryway, sitting room and a conservatory that might make a fine dining nook. The kitchen had windows in two directions and Aziraphale hummed approvingly while he ran his hands over the countertops.

Upstairs, Aziraphale stepped into the middle of the easternmost room, spinning around with his arms outstretched to face Crowley.  
“I was thinking, from the listing, that this would make a fine library. And study, of course.”  
Crowley looked around the empty room and could already envision it the way Aziraphale had likely thought of it. A piece of the shop, cut out and placed within the space. Soft rugs and dust specks in the still air.   
“You’re already figuring out how many bookshelves you can fit, aren’t you?” he teased.   
Aziraphale blushed. “Certainly all of the important ones, my dear boy, nothing else would suffice,” he said. His gaze was already making room along the walls so Crowley left him to it while he went to explore the rest of the floor.   
When Aziraphale re-joined him, he was standing in the western room, which he had discovered was the only other one on the floor, sans the bathroom. He turned slowly, the sunlight catching in his glasses and making bright spots dance across the pale wooden floors.   
“I know you don’t sleep much, angel, but a single bedroom?”  
Aziraphale looked as sheepish as he ever got. “Well I’m sure I can put a cot in the study if needed, or I’ll sleep at a different time than you, or I’ll be on the sofa,” he  
said. While he spoke, he tugged on the shirtsleeves underneath his jacket.   
Crowley narrowed his eyes. They stared each other down in silence for a few moments before Aziraphale shrugged.   
“I really do not sleep much, dear boy,” he insisted. “Let’s take a look outside, shall we? There’s a greenhouse.”  
Crowley decided to let it go. 

The garden looked overgrown, wild with native species and neglect. The mentioned greenhouse had lost three glass panes to the weather. Aziraphale sighed and Crowley thought he knew what he was thinking, or at least what he was about to say.   
”It’s perfect, angel,” Crowley said quickly, and from the look of it, it was not what Aziraphale had expected. Crowley had always enjoyed being unpredictable to Aziraphale.   
”If I’m going to live in thiss ssmall a village, I need sssomething to do, don’t I?”   
Aziraphale poorly hid a smile at that and reached out to take Crowley’s elbow.   
”Well then, how about a round of introductions to your new proteges?” he said.   
Crowley, pointedly, didn’t look at him.   
”Most of them are as good as weeds,” he said, not sounding as sharp as he knew he should. 

* * *

Furnishing was worse than how Crowley remembered the lowest levels of hell. Aziraphale refused to hire a decorator while Crowley refused Aziraphale’s wish to bring all of his, worn and centuries out of date, belongings into the new home. After a tiring argument that lasted for the better of two weeks, they had locked eyes in The Bentley on their way home from a tense Moroccan dinner and agreed that it would be best if neither of them got what they wanted. Aziraphale could keep his desk, a decorator could handle areas that they admittedly lacked experience with, Crowley got to decide on the tech, and the rest they’d buy together.   
The result was neither as sleek as Crowley’s flat, nor did it have the lived-in (Crowley called it grandparent-reminiscent) look of Aziraphale’s. Crowley had spread the plants over both floors and Aziraphale had only brought the books that mattered (and maybe then some) into the library where uniform shelves lined the walls. 

‘Not entirely unpleasant’, Crowley thought where he had settled at the table in the conservatory. He was pondering the unruly clematis and woodbine that pressed up against the windows in such a manner that the garden beyond was just barely visible, when it hit him. Even if one of the drawers in the entryway still held the key to his London flat, it was no longer where he lived. He had followed Aziraphale in a way that felt at once a natural progression, inevitable, and absolutely terrifying. For most of the move Crowley had been too busy to panic, but he could feel it starting to itch beneath his collarbones. He’d known that he would get there eventually, of course he had. On New Year’s Day he hadn’t even thought about saying no. But now he felt the tugging instinct to run away from it all before this hurt him. An instinct as old as his time on earth and deeper than reason.  
The truth of the matter was that when Crowley had first heard the phrase _ in love _ back in the 15th century, he had already been so with Aziraphale for millennia. This had never been an actual problem mostly because Crowley had never allowed it to be. He would choose for himself when to see Aziraphale, or the angel would seek him out for business as per their arrangement. It had become part of who he was, these things he felt. But the idea of having Aziraphale this close was everything he had wanted, even part of what he had wished to stop Armageddon for. However it was not one he was sure he could handle. In the past he had imagined them closer, but it had only been that his imagination, never the _ reality _ of his clothes in the closet next to Aziraphale’s, or as it were, even worse, the fact that Aziraphale had been the one to ask for it. 

A scraping noise to his left made him tense up to avoid startling. Aziraphale sat down in the chair next to him, turning his gaze toward the plants that were attempting to swallow the conservatory. He handed Crowley a glass of champagne and smiled gently over the rim of it.   
”To our home,” Aziraphale said.   
For a moment, Crowley worried that Aziraphale knew. This wasn’t a new worry, it had been chewing on the same spot inside him since time was invented. It felt familiar.   
“To our home,” he said, raising his glass.   
As soon as the words left his lips he saw the glint in Aziraphale’s green eyes, brighter than ever, even brighter than on the day he opened the bookshop. The words were spoken and Crowley knew from the ache that he couldn’t truly run from it. He could saunter away for a bit, sure, but now that he knew them he could never leave them behind.

* * *

“No, Aziraphale,” Crowley said. He was kneeling in front of the flowerbed next to the stone wall surrounding the garden, in the middle of hacking up and ripping out all the weeds that thought they owned the place. The idea was that some manual work with this problem would scare the others into withering, but he wasn’t sure it was working yet.  
Aziraphale was standing, casting a shadow across Crowley, his hands on his hips.   
“But we’re only going to look, Crowley. They say they found them all wet by the riverside _ washed up, _they say.”   
“Who’s they?” Crowley asked, grabbing at a particularly stubborn root with his gloved hands and tugging at it.  
“Our neighbours, the Merricks. Lovely people, which you would know if you came with me around the village and didn’t just grumble over this Welsh jungle all day.”   
“We’re not getting a cat,” Crowley said. He purposefully avoided Aziraphale’s eye and kept hacking away to loosen the roots from the earth. Next to him, Aziraphale lowered himself to a crouch and touched his fingers gently to a thistle.   
“Shame on you,” he said in a low tone that made Crowley shiver. “Taking over space from these fine dahlias. This place was theirs to begin with and you think you can just spread yourself out because they’re more dainty. Well think again. Get out of our garden.” Aziraphale hissed and Crowley watched as the thistle shrunk away from the angel’s fingertips. He gave in and looked at Aziraphale.   
“Fine, angel. You help me with the flowerbeds and we can go.” 

Of course Crowley knew that there was no way they would just go and _ look _ at a litter of abandoned kittens but Aziraphale had done a fine job with the weeds, particularly the stubborn taproot varieties. Still, he was underprepared for the particular way Aziraphale focused on the lankiest of the kittens, a black and grey creature with deep yellow eyes. The cat walked back and forth across the angel’s lap and looped around Crowley’s heels. Aziraphale looked at them both the same way. Crowley snarled and tried to bring himself to be displeased about it. 

The sitting room had become Crowley’s favoured space, even if he was unlikely to admit it out loud as it was the room with the most vivid blend of their style preferences. It was where Aziraphale had put plush rugs on the floor and blankets on footstools, and where Crowley had put the pieces of art he refused to part with or store (The DaVinci, and, to Aziraphale’s predictable horror, the angels).   
Crowley was exhausted, lying on the new velvet sofa, where he had retreated to slowly build his empire in the latest time-consuming, cash-grab mobile game he could find. The reason for his weariness was taking a deceivingly peaceful nap on the backrest. Since before Aziraphale had even taken the cat home from the vet, he and Crowley had done little talking beyond arguing about the naming of it.   
There was a knock on the doorframe.   
“Crowley, my dear?” Aziraphale peeked through it. He was holding two glasses and a bottle of wine.   
Crowley glanced up over his phone but didn’t stop tapping at the screen. He watched as Aziraphale set the glasses down with minimal clinking, uncorked the wine and poured it. When he sat down on top of the armrest, Crowley lay his phone down on his chest.   
“What do you want, angel?” he asked.   
“I have-” Aziraphale paused, waiting for Crowley to pick up his glass and take a sip of wine. “A suggestion.”   
The wine was one of the finer in Aziraphale’s collection and Crowley knew an oncoming truce from a mile away. He had stopped plenty of them in the past. “Go on,” he said.   
“We should name him Hamlet,” Aziraphale said.  
Crowley opened his mouth, ready to protest because he never did enjoy the gloomy ones. Perhaps he was too tired to fight anymore, perhaps it was the warm tones of the wine, perhaps it was how incredibly careful and tender Aziraphale’s eyes were. Either way, it felt more right than wrong.  
“Let’s,” he agreed and folded his legs so that Aziraphale would have space to sit next to him. 

* * *

The wisteria on the western wall bloomed on a June morning.  
Crowley walked back to the cottage from the greenhouse where he’d gotten the watering done before the day warmed up. The air was heavy with fog and the sky was still colourless. Hamlet (who Crowley refused to call anything but Ham) was moving in casual zig-zag motions at his feet. When they rounded the lilac and rhododendron and neared the cottage, he was surprised to see Aziraphale in the door between the garden and the kitchen. He hadn’t sensed him and Aziraphale had something entirely unfamiliar in his expression. Usually Aziraphale would have been deep in the morning paper until a good half hour after Crowley returned from the greenhouse.   
“Angel,” Crowley said.   
“Tea is ready,” Aziraphale said, as if nothing unusual was happening. “I thought it would be fitting in this weather.” He smiled, and gestured for Crowley to walk ahead of him.   
Crowley frowned. “I was thinking about digging a pond,” he said,even though the thought had just struck him.   
“Oh! May I request a little bench next to it?” Aziraphale said. His expression had lit up in a comfortable way, so Crowley slid past him into the kitchen that smelled rich of early grey and lavender. 

A few days later, Crowley was in the middle of ordering the full works of Danielle Steele to be delivered to the door of Mr. Harker the amusingly tense and paranoid, self-proclaimed village watch from down the road. Of course no one had asked Crowley to, but the fact that there was a self-proclaimed watch made him all the more inclined to become a bit of a village nuisance. There was so little happening around it that a few small things caused a big stir. Like how his way with plants had appeared to rile up the viciously sharp Mrs. Moss three houses down the street without him even laying a whisper in someone’s sleeping ear. He loved hearing how the slightest mischief spread to Aziraphale’s knitting club, or to the regulars at the pub.   
He stopped in the middle of typing the address as he recalled the look Aziraphale had given him. ‘Forlorn’, he thought, ‘Forlorn! The very word is like a bell’.   
There was a part of him, the part that could never leave well enough alone, that wanted to ask Aziraphale about it, so it was certainly for the best that he was already days too late. 

* * *

“I was thinking that perhaps you would like to drive me to town?” Aziraphale said, gripping the doorframe and leaning halfway into the bedroom.   
“What for?” Crowley asked, rolling over onto his back.   
“Cookbooks.”   
Crowley frowned. “Cookbooks? Don’t you have -”   
“I feel like I need something more modern. To start,”   
“To start,” Crowley repeated. He studied the angel and smirked as realization hit. “Ah. Well about time, isn’t it?”   
“A few centuries.” Aziraphale said, his hand dropping, a slight flush to his cheeks.   
Since the early 1700s, Aziraphale had kept a list of mortal hobbies and skills he intended to learn during his existence. Years had passed since Crowley had last heard him mention it. He got out of bed with the promise of stopping for coffee and opened the door for Aziraphale when they reached the Bentley. There wasn’t much convincing needed for something he was sure would be for Aziraphale’s best. It wasn’t that Aziraphale had appeared_ bored _ since they moved, but rather that Crowley worried those good deeds he wasn’t doing and all the people he wasn’t rounding up for Heaven would end up bothering him. That he would feel like he wasn’t doing enough. 

The cooking appeared to work beyond well as something to do. Aziraphale soon had that glowing intensity to him that Crowley usually only saw when he was deep in research. Determined to learn the human way was of course an initial hazard. To start only a minor miracle could avoid grease fires and he kept borrowing Crowley’s phone to read cooking blogs and left all his tabs open (and then got annoyed that he lost where he left off in the post when Crowley needed it back and the page reloaded).   
Crowley never did care much for food, but the improvement was palpable over time. The kitchen filled up with cookbooks and nice scents, and Aziraphale more often than not forgot to take his apron off or wandered into Crowley’s space with a dusting of flour adorning his chin.   
Aziraphale liked habits and patterns, and Crowley liked Aziraphale having them. It made him feel constant in a way that scared Crowley as much as it soothed him. Food became part of their routine even more than before. They still took the Bentley to restaurants that sounded appealing or strolled down to the village inn, but they also opted to stay at home as soon as Aziraphale had found or remembered something that he wanted to attempt making. The greenhouse started filling up not just with decorative species, but with sprouting herbs and vegetables. Still not needing the sustenance, Crowley appreciated that Aziraphale plated for him with the purpose to showcase the flavours instead. 

True to his nature in equal measure, Aziraphale didn’t sleep throughout spring. The rains grew warmer and the rhododendron by the front gate bloomed. Crowley hadn’t thought about what it would mean over a longer (his mind grazed over the word _ indefinite _ but didn’t dare stay there) time. Nights in the cottage, Crowley fell asleep to the sounds of Aziraphale moving about in the library or in the kitchen below. Sometimes he was humming to himself as he cooked, or muttering while reading, or made the occasional long-distance call to a book dealer across the world (he wasn’t going to lose his love for old volumes just because he no longer kept the shop open, after all) The bedroom had been a compromise to avoid the harsh lines and cold materials that the decorators of Crowley’s flat had preferred but Aziraphale near despised.. It was minimal, still, but there was wooden floors, white wardrobe doors, linen curtains, plush white bedsheets and a wallpaper in a warm sandy colour. And then there was Crowley, who tried not to feel out of place as he rolled himself into layers of covers and blankets. 

He wasn’t sure if Aziraphale had slept at all since the world didn’t end. A couple of times in late spring he found the angel staring into space instead of reading, in a state very reminiscent to dozing off. It was late June when Crowley gazed at the soft shadows on the ceiling overhead and heard snoring from the library.  
He got out of bed and walked barefoot across the hall. Aziraphale was sitting at his desk, face down in a book, hands resting next to his head. Crowley let out a sigh and noted that the book at least wasn’t of the kind that didn’t take well to touching these days. Not that he knew such things by sight, not like Aziraphale did, but the angel wasn’t wearing protective gloves.   
“Hey, angel,” Crowley said. He hesitated before putting his hand over Aziraphale’s shoulder. When Aziraphale didn’t stir, he squeezed it gently. “Angel, rise and shine.”   
“Crowley,” Aziraphale mumbled onto the page. He appeared to be grasping for Crowley’s hand.   
“Time for bed,” Crowley told him. They had never addressed the matter so he wasn’t actually sure how Aziraphale’s sleeping habits worked, but it seemed very clear that he at least shouldn’t be taking his quarter-yearly nap with his head at an angle.   
Aziraphale stirred, tilted his neck to the other side and mumbled something about putting his desk in order first, but at least he got to his feet and Crowley assumed that he could safely leave him be and get back to bed. 

While Aziraphale slowly shuffled around in the study, Crowley lay awake with the door ajar. He reasoned that he should make sure that Aziraphale actually went to sleep proper. A couple of minutes passed in quiet before he could glimpse Aziraphale move out of the library.   
“Aziraphale,” he said slowly. Barely whispered, in case the angel would prefer not to hear him.   
Aziraphale stopped at the top of the stairs. Crowley’s vision was good enough in the dark to see that his hand lay on top of the railing.   
“The bed fits two,” Crowley said. He regretted it, but something loosened in his chest. It felt as if the room around him was cracking open somehow. It was so quiet that he could hear the river halfway across the village through the open window.   
“A fair point,” Aziraphale said at last, turning. He hesitated still. walking across the threshold. As if he was uninvited.  
Crowley turned over on his side, pillowing his head on his hands. They were both quiet as Aziraphale undressed and drew aside the covers. Crowley didn’t bother with breathing. Even with distance and layers between them, Aziraphale made the room feel warmer. It appeared it was his nature to run warm, and Crowley had to fight the instinct to move toward it. It had been a long while since he had even attempted to resist it. 

The dark held many questions. Crowley knew for a fact that they thrived in what should be his nature. It made sense, he supposed, that what rid him of his halo was what found him in his unilluminated state. ‘Are you happy like this?’ He wanted to ask. ‘How long is this for?’ ‘Are you not afraid?’ And always, and most of all. ‘Do you know how deeply I feel about you, angel?’   
  
He didn’t ask any of them, and Aziraphale’s soft breaths in sleep gave no answers. 


	3. PART TWO: Summer

The house smelled of roasted peaches and sage when Crowley returned from the shop. He was carrying a bag of groceries that Aziraphale had requested and stopped to linger in the sitting room. Hamlet was lying in the armchair and Crowley scratched him slowly in his favourite spot between the ears. He watched Aziraphale cook, the angel too focused to be aware of both Crowley and Hamlet staring. He was humming softly, something Crowley thought might be Vivaldi. The longing in Crowley’s being was core-deep.   
He set the groceries down on the coffee table and left the way he came, venturing back out into the village. The cat followed closely in his tracks. 

It had rained that morning and the forecasted summer’s heat wave had yet to sweep in. Crowley walked down the street with the carefree air of a being that had nowhere to go. It was only partly true as he happened to know that the local brass band was rehearsing in the church hall. He found it rather relaxing to pretend to read the newspaper next to Hamlet on a bench below the window and cause disturbances of various flavours for the following hour. It was the palate cleanser he needed for an afternoon when the house smelled rich and sweet and he couldn’t stop thinking about what waking up next to Aziraphale had felt like. How he had woken up pressed against Aziraphale’s back and not been surprised or frightened... A distraction might kick him out of it enough to not be a bore at dinner. 

Had someone told Crowley that he would thrive living in a small Welsh village at some point in his existence, he would have laughed in their face. But there was a lot to say to the particular kinds of drama that this type of setting inspired. As it turns out, a village was perfect for the kind of rumours, unfortunate incidents and strange happenings that Crowley had genuinely enjoyed bringing where he went.   
Most of the time Crowley caused small mischief and unfortunate happenstances for the villagers. He encouraged the children to pull more pranks, made things go bump in the night for a man he’d overheard making an extrordinarily bigoted comment in the shop and caused mix-ups at local art shows. But he had also made himself a couple of proper, worthy adversaries.   
One was Mr Harker (who in addition to thinking he was the lawman of the village, had strong views on Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s living situation and relationship that Crowley did not enjoy). The other was Beaucoup. Beaucoup was, according to some, a pomeranian who lived one street over and whose evening walk involved a turn around the Crowley & Fell garden wall. Along that wall grew a couple of stunning burgundy roses that had been gradually waning in spite of Crowley’s well-intentioned threats. Because not even an angry demon could do much about the chemistry of soil and dog pee. According to Crowley, Beaucoup was an abomination intent on torturing Crowley, possibly for eternity. Aziraphale tried to convince him that the fluffy dog was, in fact, not a pest of demonic origin, or fundamentally evil for that matter. Beaucoup was just a dog, Aziraphale claimed but Crowley did not believe him. 

It had always been true, even in the garden, that Aziraphale was a force of warmth that drew Crowley in. He could taste it in the air when he returned from his venture to the band rehearsal. Aziraphale was still in the kitchen, making final touches to dinner. The groceries from earlier had been unpacked.  
“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, eyes narrowed at the frying pan. “How was rehearsal?”   
Crowley huffed. “Not as much fun as the theatre troupe. But a good evening’s work.”   
“Do you want to taste this?” Aziraphale held out a spoonful of some form of sauce.   
It was peculiar, feeling as if there was something brave about daring to move closer. He gestured to take the spoon, but Aziraphale brought it to his lips first. The sauce was rich and deep with notes of chamomile and almonds.   
“Heavenly,” Crowley said and smirked, his face hovering close to Aziraphale’s.    
The angel let out a soft laugh and swatted half-heartedly in Crowley’s general direction. His fingertip grazed Crowley’s nose.   
“Please, go pick us something to drink and I’ll set the table.”

Aziraphale appeared to have gotten all the sleep he needed the night before. Long past dinner and conversation over some nice whiskey, Crowley lay awake and listened to the wind in the trees, and to Aziraphale talking to a cooking video downstairs as if he was having a two-sided conversation. He could taste the warmth on the tip of his tongue, not sure if it was still lingering from the night before, or if it was just one of those evenings where it nestled too close.

* * *

The stone eagle found its home in the repaired greenhouse. Crowley hadn’t wanted to part with it so once Aziraphale had repainted the wooden structure a fresh white, once the window panes were fixed, the floors mended and the space cleared out, he picked the eagle up from its London storage. Placing it at the center of the wall would perhaps be a little on the nose for not-a-church, so it found a good place between the melon and chili plants. Crowley still spent his mornings in there and dedicated the evening to the vegetable patch next to the kitchen entrance. During the afternoons he napped in the sun next to the flowering mock-orange, with Ham taking the liberty to in turn nap on his chest. Aziraphale found this “endearing” while Crowley (albeit weakly) insisted that the cat should settle for the second best sun spot since he had been there first. 

A few weeks into their first heat wave, Aziraphale walked into the greenhouse with two glasses of iced tea, with strawberries for Crowley, and mint for himself. But he didn’t leave, instead he remained standing by the door, thinking.  
“Would you mind terribly, dear boy, if we perhaps found a nice table and some chairs to put in here?” He nodded to the corner closest to the door where a grapevine was climbing, supernaturally vigorously, toward the ceiling.   
“Oh,” Crowley said, looking up from where he was re-potting some herbs for the flower box in the kitchen window. “What for?”   
Aziraphale looked at him for a second, then cast his gaze down and shrugged in a way that Crowley took to mean that he was wishing he had asked without asking instead.   
“Company?” He said at last, raising a careful glance in Crowley’s direction.   
Most days, Crowley found the greenhouse a comforting kind of warm, but at that moment he felt a flush of it creep up his neck.   
“Yeah, sssure, angel,” he said instead. “Order whatever you want.”  
Aziraphale stared at him, and it took him a moment to remember that while he was warming to the internet, online shopping was still beyond this angel who still preferred typewritten catalogues if at all available.   
“Right, yess of courssse. We’ll look at it thiss evening, perhapsss, then?”

They settled for a small round table and two chairs in black wrought iron which appealed to Crowley and an intricate vine-like design that was along Aziraphale’s tastes. In the mornings, Crowley would have coffee or tea while Aziraphale had breakfast and after that the two of them would venture out to the greenhouse, usually running into Hamlet, his fur still wet from dew, along the way. Aziraphale spent this time at the table quietly reading the papers or solving crossword puzzles. Crowley didn’t yell at the plants as much with him around, because it was very clear that the angel disapproved of this method. He waited until the evening instead and settled for hissing as menacing as he could at them while still being subtle about it when Aziraphale was present.  
It was a feeling Crowley wasn’t used to yet, the fact that not only was there something comfortable about how they coexisted, but Aziraphale was seeking it out. He caught himself staring sometimes, at the grape leaves casting shadows across Aziraphale’s cheeks as the sun rose. It felt like gentle heat and a dull ache all at once.

* * *

In the midst of summer, Crowley urged Aziraphale and a picnic basket into the Bentley and drove toward the coast. They stopped along the way to buy local cheeses and bread to go with their wine, and Aziraphale had picked strawberries and greens from the vegetable patch the night before.   
Along the way, Aziraphale told him all about the people in the knitting club at the library. To most, this would be a rather dull sort of village gossip, but Aziraphale was not most. He had always had the kind of faces that mortals wanted to tell most, if not all, to, as long as a good cup of tea was also involved. And Aziraphale could make any tea as good as it pleased him at the time. 

Aziraphale hadn’t made Crowley plan ahead, so he took a turn onto the first small road that looked pleasant and kept going until they found the sea. It was a warm blue-grey, stretching uninterrupted into the horizon. Crowley heard Aziraphale breathe deeper once he saw it.   
They settled down among the dunes, where the sand didn’t whirl up and get in Aziraphale’s eyes or in the food. Crowley leaned back against the warm sloping surface, swirling the wine in his glass while cooling it.   
Aziraphale’s hair looked every bit like spun gold in the sunlight. He had taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Freckles had been gradually appearing on his skin since late spring and Crowley wondered if that was illogically nature’s doing or just Aziraphale wishing them to be there. He still hadn’t asked about it, but had decided that he liked the ones on Aziraphale’s eyelids the best. Crowley hid his gaze behind his sunglasses, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop looking.   
“Do angels get sunburnt?” he asked.   
Aziraphale appeared thoughtful. A line visible between his eyebrows. “I don’t actually know. I suppose I haven’t been much of a beach person.”   
“You’ve been on all continents over six millennia, angel, surely you must know if you can get a sunburn?”  
“I mean, I suppose I must have remembered if I did,” he said, the frown still not leaving his forehead as he turned and looked at Crowley. “Do demons burn? That doesn’t quite make sense.”   
Crowley shrugged. “We just don’t enjoy the light very much.”   
“Why?”   
“Shows too much.”   
“I’ve seen you in sunlight,” Aziraphale said, his head tilted slightly to the right.   
Crowley looked at him. Thought, ‘Yes, angel, but you’re different__’.   
“You’ve also seen me be a snake. You have just known me for the longest.”   
This was not entirely true, of course, but Aziraphale didn’t seem to bother with the fact that it wasn’t, and said “Point taken.” He refilled both their glasses with chilled wine, and the silence that settled between them was a pleasant one. The air was occupied enough with seagulls and wind and waves. In that space, Crowley looked at where Aziraphale’s hand rested on the blanket between them and allowed himself a few moments of imagining what it would be like if that were an invitation. 

“Let’s go down to the shore,” Aziraphale said, brushing off his trousers while he stood.   
Crowley shook himself out of his line of thought as if he was shrugging off the same stray sand.   
They left the picnic behind, it would be unnoticed in the dunes anyway. The beach was far from crowded, but they still strolled away from the area with the most people. Aziraphale took his shoes off and walked where the waves hit the shore, his toes burying into the sand. He had a peace about him that was less about his expression and more about an aura radiating off of his being. It made Crowley feel lax in a way that surprised himself.   
Now and then, Aziraphale bent down to pick up a seashell or a pretty rock, occasionally pocketing one with a pleased hum that Crowley had to fight against smiling at.   
“Six millennia and you’re still picking shells and pebbles,” he said, quietly as to not sound too fond.   
Aziraphale’s eyes were wide, grey as if to not outshine the sea. He smiled. “Earth has yet to stop surprising me with beauty in the small things.” 

Before they turned back homeward, Crowley took them to dinner at a seaside hotel with a white painted wood facade. Aziraphale couldn’t quite shake that he felt as if he had been there before, and Crowley thought for a moment that he might actually be able to get Aziraphale to ask him to shut up about books if he talked about Poirot and Marple novels for long enough. When the sun hovered low in the sky, Crowley led Aziraphale outside onto the deck and leaned against the railing, watching the sea.   
“Are you happy, my dear boy?” Aziraphale asked.   
Crowley hadn’t seen it coming. He fixed his gaze to the horizon and exhaled. ‘Yes, so very’, he thought. ‘Always, with you’. Somewhere, he knew that Aziraphale would understand to some extent that he was still churning it within himself. He nodded, slowly but clearly. Aziraphale let out a hum next to him, and his fingertips grazed over the back of Crowley’s hand.   
The smile lingering on Aziraphale’s lips when Crowley turned his head after a very long time, the way he just very nearly glowed in the setting sun, told Crowley that the answer to what wasn’t spoken would have been ‘Yes, me too.’

The day after, Crowley found a perfectly smooth piece of red sea glass in his jacket. It felt soft and warm to the touch when he ran his thumb over it. As it happened, he would also keep forgetting to take it out of his pocket for years to come. 

* * *

Adam Young came to visit with his parents and the Them on a road trip so Aziraphale served them all tea in the garden. He had made a stunning red currant cake and three kinds of sandwiches and looked very pleased with himself about it. From the few remaining crumbs on the plates, Crowley assumed that it was a well-earned pride. Granted he’d had to glare reason into Dog to not snag any of the treats from the table, but that hardly needed to be mentioned. He just didn’t want Aziraphale’s expression to be anything else for the day.   
  
After tea, the Them politely asked permission and then, before properly listening for the reply, set off with Dog into the depths of the garden.   
“Don’t trample my flowerbeds!” Crowley yelled after them, even though he didn’t move a limb to follow.   
“The village is lovely for a walk,” Aziraphale said in a conversational tone to the Youngs. “You should take one down to the river. Let Dog and the children run off some energy before you keep driving.”   
The guests looked weary at the thought of getting back in the car and nodded. Aziraphale provided them with some walking directions. The village was hardly big enough to get lost in anyway.   
Crowley couldn’t ignore the look Aziraphale gave him after the Youngs had left.   
He sighed. “I know that they’re children and a dog, yes. But I know what they have been.”   
Aziraphale placed a gentle hand on Crowley’s wrist. “I’ll go keep an eye on them,” he said and got to his feet.   
Crowley wanted to ask him to stay but couldn’t find a good reason why.   
Instead, he carried the remainder of the dishes into the kitchen and stood for a while by the window, looking out at the group playing with Dog in the garden. They appeared to have found a loophole in Crowley’s warning and Dog was currently jumping over the flowerbeds. He found that he couldn’t possibly fault them for that. Loopholes were one of his favourite parts of the fabric of reality. Aziraphale was standing off to the side with Pepper, speaking too quietly for Crowley to hear unless he truly wanted to, and there was something about their serious expressions that made him feel like he should give them privacy. Instead, he went off to slip a bottle of good brandy into the boot of the Youngs’ car, for later when they were safely off the road. 

Once the cottage and garden was quiet again, the two of them sat on the porch swing that Aziraphale had painted a deep teal that reminded Crowley of Monet’s water lilies. He knew Aziraphale had known the painter and always got a little wistful speaking about him. The sun set peach and violet over the trees.   
“Not so bad is it, godparents?” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley shook his head. “Just you wait until he grows older and realize we’re not as cool as he currently thinks, demon and angel or not.”   
“Speak for yourself, fiend,” Aziraphale said. His smile was warmer even than the day had been and Crowley wished he could tuck himself into it somehow.   
“You know you can’t impress him with the wings,” he said instead.   
“Well, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Aziraphale said. He leaned back in his seat, folding his hands in his lap.   
“Angel, please tell me you don’t mean that literally.” Crowley said, but he couldn’t help but grin.   
Aziraphale made a dismissive sound, his lips still curled in a smile, he glanced Crowley with narrowed eyes. “Just go fetch me that leftover cake, my dear,” he said.   
There was something in his expression, the flash of a mischief that Crowley helplessly adored that made him think that he was seconds away from another card trick. With a sigh, he swung himself up from his seat and headed into the kitchen. 

* * *

A dark blue late summer night had embraced the village by the time Crowley parked the Bentley. He’d spent a longer day than intended in London, but he was still reluctant to admit that it was because the city made him feel a little paranoid these days.   
It was a marvel, really, how the warm glow from the cottage and the soft music that he heard as he unlocked the front door was enough to wipe any remaining tension from his spine. He stopped for a moment to breathe in the smell of oak, cherries, warmth and Aziraphale. 

Crowley recognized the song, had heard it a lot in the seventies, had thought of Aziraphale when he did. _I thought the sun rose in your eyes. _But then, he had thought of Aziraphale a lot in the wake of the car and the thermos and the heist that never was.   
In the sitting room, Aziraphale was swaying to the music, as close to dancing himself across the room as an earthbound angel ever was. Assumedly, he was intending to dust the top row of books in the bookshelf (he didn’t, in fact, reach the very top of the shelf itself, which made Crowley wonder if he intended to miracle that away).   
Moving to catch Aziraphale’s hands in his own wasn’t really a decision, if it had been Crowley would have surely snuffed it out fast as the thought struck. The angel gasped even if Crowley assumed that he had known he was there.  
Angels never made good dancers, but as much as Aziraphale was clumsy on his feet, he was easy to lead. Crowley spun him around and drew him closer. If surprise had prompted Aziraphale to gasp, it was gone by the time he looked up at Crowley. What remained was just the flickering reflection of the lamp in his hazel eyes. The feather duster had moved onto the shelf, a fact which Crowley was likely to overthink much later.   
It was easier than he thought it would be, grinning like he was simply doing this on one devious whim or another. But he knew it was a precaution to will his heart to stop beating altogether as he swayed them over the rug, especially when Aziraphale exhaled and turned his head just slightly in toward Crowley’s jaw.   
“We danced once before,” he said.   
“You were awful at the charleston,” Crowley hummed, his voice low. “Better at this.”   
Aziraphale was quiet for a moment. “Not much to this, though, is it?” he said.  
“No, I suppose it isn’t, not at all,” he lied before he twirled Aziraphale around and brought him back in while the song rang out.   
There was, in fact, a lot to it. The soft warm light on Aziraphale’s face, the way his face looked bare of all worry. But that wasn’t what Aziraphale meant, and it was easier not to, so Crowley didn’t mention it. For several moments he thought of how little it would take for him to lift his hand to cup Aziraphale’s chin, but eventually enough time passed that he realized that this, of all things, he couldn’t will into happening.  
“Did you have a good outing?” Aziraphale asked as Crowley let go of his hand.   
‘I missed you,’ Crowley thought while Aziraphale removed his warm grip on Crowley’s shoulder. “Glad to be back here,” he said, which felt close enough.   
“I made cherry jam,” Aziraphale said. “Needs work.”   
Crowley moved his hand from his waist and stepped away. “I can give you feedback, if you wish,” he said.   
Aziraphale glowed, somewhere contained within his mortal form. “Shall I make some toast for us, then?”

* * *

Come September, Aziraphale looked tired again. Crowley let a couple of weeks pass while he waited politely for him to make the sensible choice and sleep, but nothing happened.   
He gave up one evening, watching TV while sprawled out over two thirds of the sofa, Aziraphale grumbling at dropping stitches in his knitting on the last third.   
“Come on angel,” he said, turning the TV off and reaching for the cat shaped stitch marker Aziraphale had picked up in a shop in Bath a few weeks prior. He held it out until Aziraphale focused his confusion.   
“We’re going to bed,” Crowley said. Through something, perhaps the determination in his voice, Aziraphale nodded and took the marker from his hand. 

It was much like the time before, except Crowley couldn’t help but be aware of the fact that intention had a way to change all things. Even if it was only in the way his mind felt as if it was twisting into coils.   
“Were you always stubborn like this? About sleep.” Crowley asked when Aziraphale had laid down on his back.   
Aziraphale glanced at him and opened his mouth to reply or protest or both, but closed it again. Then he shook his head.   
“I suppose not quite. I used to -” He fell quiet.   
It was a quiet that Crowley knew, even if he didn’t understand all the nuances of it.   
“Ah,” he said, thinking about the way the angels had stepped into the bookstore the same day that it opened. As if it was their right just because it’s where Aziraphale had stationed himself. Beside him, Aziraphale hummed and closed his eyes.    
“Do you think in due time, they’ll seek us out?” he asked.   
Crowley drew his knees up to his chest. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Maybe.”   
All his senses shivered to awareness when Aziraphale’s hand grasped his on top of the covers. It took all his will not to stare.   
“They never deserved you,” Crowley said. Wanted to add, ‘and neither do I’.   
“I suppose it’s different now,” Aziraphale said quietly. “Together, in the same place.”   
_ Together,  _ Crowley’s mind echoed. It felt like holy ground, too painful to fully perceive.   
“Yes,” he said, because he couldn’t manage saying that he didn’t want to be elsewhere. He wasn’t looking at Aziraphale, but he could feel him smiling.  
Crowley knew that he had always been better at gestures so he picked a book from the nightstand (Dylan Thomas, not his first choice, but it would do) and opened it. Neither of them said a thing, but he watched out of the corner of his eye as Aziraphale got settled. 

It was mostly for show, the book, but he kept reading it for a while before switching it out for his phone. It lit the room in a blue hue by the time Aziraphale shifted closer to Crowley, his hand grasping at his arm.   
Crowley watched Aziraphale’s sleeping form and sighed. ”I wanted to hurt them, you know, for so much as daring to hurt you. I didn’t know until I stood there and had to watch -” he trailed off and dropped the phone on top of the covers. “I never really did that, it wasn’t really my brand, direct torture and pain, but at that moment I wanted to tie their limbs over that fire for an eternity. It’s been a very long time, angel... In 1250 you called me dear for the very first time. This is cowardly, but I don’t know how to stop.”   
The phone screen locked and night fell over the room like curtain at the theatre. Crowley’s eyes adjusted and Aziraphale’s hair looked silver and blue.   
“You have me,” Crowley added. “For centuries, you’ve had me. Maybe since the beginning, even. Our hearts don’t work like mortal ones, but I think I know… my chest thrums with this awareness of you, and it’s not just because you and I were made from the same stuff because I never know any other angel when they walk the earth. I wonder sometimes if this is how it’s always been. Even before. I know you’ve never mentioned it so perhaps that’s just… glorifying the past. It doesn’t matter if it were. I’m sure they told you I can’t feel, but it isn’t true, other fallen just choose not to. But I- I looked at you, in the garden or during some millennia to follow, and I didn’t want to cast that aside. When you didn’t come with me to the stars, when you asked me to come with you here, I chose again, and again.” 

For a long while, Crowley was quiet. It felt strange, having said so many things out loud and have his insides still feel as tightly bundled together as they had always been. Aziraphale was asleep and unhearing, no divine power had pulled Crowley’s words out of the night and into the angel’s awareness. And all that was unspoken within Crowley remained. He rolled onto his side and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale who bent his forehead to Crowley’s sternum, his breath warm against Crowley’s skin.

He didn’t sleep. Come the first morning light, before Aziraphale had even stirred, he slipped out of bed and left a tray of miraculously well-tempered breakfast on the nightstand. He put Dylan Thomas back at the exact angle he had taken it from just to be sure. The tea smelled like temptation, but he didn’t want to linger.    
“Go keep him company, will you, Ham?” he said to the cat waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Hamlet looped around his legs once, purring. Crowley left him, heading out through the kitchen, as he was climbing the stairs.   
There was plenty to be done in the greenhouse in spite of most of the current harvest being in the vegetable patch. If Crowley that morning was perhaps harsher on the tomatoes than he had been so far, it was mostly because he wanted them to survive through the autumn and winter to come. 

That evening, as he was trying to sleep without thinking about the way the room smelled, he heard Aziraphale speak softly to the dogwood by the south wall. The angel was asking it to please be so kind and stop reaching over the path. Crowley closed his eyes and willed himself away, but the universe wasn’t convinced. He remained where he truly wished to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song quoted in this chapter is the wonderful Roberta Flack's "The first time ever i saw your face".


	4. PART THREE: Autumn

And so the cold settled into the sunny days and the conservatory roof was awash with rain on most of the others. Crowley started layering clothes to go out into the greenhouse around the same time that Aziraphale finished his first big knitting project, a shawl in multiple rusty shades that he draped across Crowley’s shoulders. 

* * *

They were running late to the harvest fair because Aziraphale came downstairs in dungarees and Crowley had refused to let him leave the house.   
“Where did you even get those travesties, angel?” Crowley asked as they hurried down the street. He was balancing a stack of well-wrapped pies in a basket in his arms.   
“I’ve had them for ages!” Aziraphale reached out a hand to hold onto the top pie. “What if they don’t let me enter because we weren’t there on time?” His eyes were wide with worry and Crowley sighed.   
“They won’t,” Crowley said, and he could feel it coming true because it was what he wanted. Aziraphale was still looking at him so he smiled, helplessly warm, and repeated. “They won’t.” 

Crowley left Aziraphale to set up in the pie competition tent because he kept hitting Crowley over the hand or tutting whenever he tried to set something down, and Crowley knew when he was only in the way in the bad sense. He perused the closest stands and tents while waiting, knowing that Aziraphale would want to go with him to investigate them properly later.   
Aziraphale had decided that he wasn’t allowed to enter the harvest fair’s bounty contest since his vegetables had been “deviously threatened into that size”. Naturally, Crowley decided that he would prove to Aziraphale that he could do wonders with greens with dedication alone for the following year. Thus he thought it best to look at what his future rivals had to offer. Mrs. Moss was there, of course, and it pleased Crowley to see that she was lacking slightly in her hand with vegetables. He stalked around, eyeing the tables carefully, not getting too close to avoid being dragged into any small talk.   
Since he started tending to the garden he had been aware that the village was talking and it became even clearer in this tiny show tent, that it had been an unexpected move of him not to enter. All the better, he thought. Next year would be all the grander for it. He would even have time to build up the worry through somewell-aimed rumours about how his vegetable selection had once been a regional grand champion of someplace or other. 

He picked up a couple of mugs of hot cider on his way back to the very busy pie tent. There was some weaving through the crowds and lines necessary before he could reach the end of the tent. Aziraphale was rosy-cheeked and, had the mortals been able to perceive it, glowing slightly behind his table when Crowley approached and handed him his mug.  
Aziraphale held out a fork in response, Crowley smirked but made no move to take it.   
“What are you -” Aziraphale interrupted himself and rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He dug the fork into the pie and held out the bite for Crowley.   
Mrs. Lyttle, wife of Pastor Lyttle, had just stepped up next to him so Crowley made a very inspired moaning noise. Mrs. Lyttle’s eyes widened, Aziraphale was wishing for a sword, and Crowley was having a splendid time. He noted that the good wife did grab two plates of pie after she politely smiled and scurried off.   
Crowley had to admit that the pie truly was Aziraphale’s best one yet. Perhaps even, the best apple pie Crowley had ever had.   
“Is that brandy, angel?” He raised an eyebrow, purposefully not addressing his showcase from seconds earlier. Aziraphale’s eyes were yelling for a sword again, but this time in a more charming manner.   
“Hush, don’t give away my secrets!” he hissed, gesturing for Crowley to come around to the other side of the table. Crowley knew he should have a protest in him but found none. He touched his fingertips briefly to Aziraphale’s yellow checkered apron, but said nothing about that or how he had not been wearing that a half hour earlier either.   
“I adjusted the amount of ginger and nutmeg based on what you said the last time,” Aziraphale said. “Thank you.” 

Both of them knew that the jury and public were going to give Aziraphale first prize, but in the end he settled for second. “Didn’t want to grab too much attention,” he claimed, fidgeting with the second place ribbon. Crowley raised an eyebrow, but didn’t have a response to his warm smile.   
“Allow me,” he said, plucking the ribbon from Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale stood very still while he fastened the ribbon to his lapel, making sure not to snag the fabric. He might not have ever understood Aziraphale’s choice in jackets, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t understand how important they were to the angel himself.   
There was an odd look on Aziraphale’s face as he met his gaze, and Crowley cleared his throat.   
“Come on angel,” he said with an air of ease that he felt none of. “There’s more cider waiting and I saw some stunning hand dyed yarn when I was poking about.” He offered his arm, and not until he grasped it did Aziraphale’s expression warm again.

* * *

  
They were stretched out on opposite ends of the porch swing. The sun filtered through the blushing apple trees. It was bordering on too chilly, but Aziraphale’s legs were warm against Crowley’s and the sun still felt like traces of summer on his skin.    
Aziraphale had brought them tea, but the pot was no longer steaming and the tray stood off to the side on the ground so to not get accidentally knocked over. He was reading now, for leisure, Crowley could tell from the lack of small wrinkle in his brow. ‘How long,’ Crowley thought, ‘for how long have I known these things?’   
“Aziraphale, would you?” He said, breaking a silence he wasn’t sure how long they had held. He forgot to count with Aziraphale, he always had.   
“Would I?” Aziraphale asked. He didn’t look up from his book, so Crowley nudged him with his foot until he did.  
“Angel,” he said, “It’s been a long time. Indulge me.”   
“I indulge you far too much for my own good,” Aziraphale said. His voice sounded like a smile. “I thought you didn’t like Austen.”   
Crowley huffed and crossed his arms. “I’ve never said anything like it!”   
“Too pastoral, you said!”  
“I’m sure I didn’t.”   
“You scoffed when I called her a national treasure because I’m not even from here”  
“I don’t recall any of this. And if I ever did I am sure I just meant that I prefer some adventure and good old fashioned duels.” He was trying very hard not to smirk, and he recognized the twitch of one on Aziraphale’s lips too.   
Aziraphale made a sceptical noise. “I really must try and record these things better so I can prove it to you later.”   
“You should start now,” Crowley said and didn’t mean it. He shifted his legs so that they draped over Aziraphale’s. An invitation to lean back and be kept there, albeit without force. “But refresh my memory first. Maybe I do or maybe I don’t.”   
Aziraphale let out a breath on the verge of a sigh, but then he turned a couple of pages back to the start of the chapter before he started to read.   
It had, in fact, been a very long time. Crowley had been quieter about it then, always still drunk, on the bookshop sofa, head tipped back over the armrest. Back then it had been with the hope that Aziraphale wouldn’t just leave him to sleep, to spend just a little more time in the same space even if Crowley’s mind was slowing down and he’d need a miracle to stay awake. Surely Aziraphale knew how easy it would be for him to do that, to sober up and leave, and yet he let him stay. It was a pattern over time, loops in the millennia they had spent together. Crowley had always come for Aziraphale, and Aziraphale had always let him stay.   
He didn’t fall asleep on the porch swing, just rested his legs over Aziraphale’s and closed his eyes. Listened to the birds, felt the sun flecks on his cheekbones, but most of all he heard Aziraphale. The way he breathed and sighed into words, how they quivered with tension and ached with beauty. It wasn’t Aziraphale’s words but every single one felt like it. 

The sun was setting, the trees cast deeper shadows and Crowley wished that he could press more of himself against Aziraphale’s warm being. He remembered why it had been a long time. It was so easy to get lost in Aziraphale’s voice and the worlds he built with his tongue.  
“Maybe I just tried to read Austen on my own,” Crowley said once he felt the evening chill settle in his fingers. He kept his eyes closed.    
Aziraphale hummed in reply. Low and impossible to understand. One of the corners of him that Crowley hadn’t yet figured out.   
”My dear heart,” Aziraphale said softly.   
Crowley’s body echoed, filling up with the need to respond and he opened his eyes.   
”What- what was that, angel?” he said, reaching out to grasp at the edge of the swing.   
”Hmm?” Aziraphale looked up at him from the book, surprise shaking him from his reverie, as if he was unaware of the world around him.   
”It’s getting a bit chilly,” Crowley said. “I’ll make some more tea.”   
Aziraphale was quiet while Crowley untangled their legs, but he kept the swing still as he got up. “I’ll fix us a nice soup. I think,” he said, holding out a hand for Crowley.    
Crowley took it and pulled him to his feet. 

Their hands brushed four times on the way to the kitchen door. Some things Crowley was still counting. 

* * *

Come October, Anathema visited to help Aziraphale with the apples which had, likely under Crowley’s influence since the trees should be too old, become too much for one being to handle. For the visit, Crowley kept out of the way and the kitchen, but listened to the distant chatter of the witch and the angel as they went back and forth over which apples went into what batch of juice, marmalade, sauce and pastries. In the meantime, he took a turn around the village and whispered terrible things to Mrs. Moss’ prized hybrid tea rose when he saw that she was away from the house. Hamlet didn’t follow as the cat appeared to be fascinated by Anathema’s presence. Crowley wondered if this was how familiars were made. 

When he returned, Anathema was waiting by the front gate, leaning against it in a way that made it impossible to know if she had stood there for an hour or less than a minute.   
“Can I pick some of the herbs from your garden?” she asked. “There’s a lot of variety here… lots that’d be useful to a witch.”   
Crowley couldn’t think of a reason to say no, and from the way Anathema moved he knew that she would be alright with him overseeing the work done.   
“Is Hamlet a familiar?” he asked, striding past her as they both walked around the house and out back. From the kitchen trailed faint strings from a violin concerto that reminded him of Aziraphale in a cognac coloured suit at the very back of an auditorium.   
“No, he’s all cat,” Anathema said. The gravel path crunched under her pointed boots. “A little bit influenced by the two of you already, though. But that’ll be all you and none of him when it comes to it,” she said, looking up to shoot Crowley a crooked smile. “No, I won’t tell Aziraphale yet.” 

Crowley leaned against a cast iron arch where he thought he might grow hops next season. He was holding a basket and watching as Anathema carefully cut down herbs that had bloomed over and spread. Some were already drying out, but she had insisted they would do plenty of good for her intended uses anyway.   
“You can feel it here, you know,” she said, looking out over the garden.   
“Feel what?” he asked, because he felt willing to indulge.   
“The love,” she said, letting out a small sigh. “It’s beautiful.”   
It stung, that’s what it did.   
“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied.  
He felt the kindness, the warmth, the late nights in a restaurant and in the bookshop. Some days he felt undeserving of it, because he knew his own core too well to think of any other reason why Aziraphale would stick around apart from having done so since before time was invented. But in the end, he had spent millennia considering it and felt like he owed this impossible feeling of his to accept all that he was offered. Aziraphale’s friendship, his loyalty and trust was more than enough to sustain him. For always, should he wish.   
Anathema shot him a look, then went back to cutting, discarding very damaged leaves into a separate basket to go in the compost.   
It was like scratching at a scab over a wound, Crowley thought. He shouldn’t let it work on him and yet. “He doesn’t know,” he said.  
“You think?” Anathema was focused on her methodical cutting, sorting, discarding.   
Crowley watched her work and wanted to be annoyed but couldn’t manage “Well, if he does I’ll be in for a metaphorical heartbreak because he has never mentioned it.”   
“Mhm.” She frowned at that, as if there was something she didn’t agree with in his words. “You know, there was a pro-”   
He held up both his hands as if to shield himself. “Shh, no, no. Please, I would rather not deal with more prophecies.”   
“That’s alright,” she said, giving him a nod that he took to mean that she understood.   
He lowered himself to a crouch next to her and pulled out a pair of scissors from nothing before getting to cutting as he had watched her do.   
“So, what do you do with these anyway?” he asked.   
Anathema smiled at him, her eyes glittered dark.   


* * *

The mornings had grown cold and sharp on the day that Aziraphale appeared, scarf and tweed coat on, in the greenhouse. It had been at least a couple of months since it was the two of them in there in the morning, and instead of holding a cup of tea and the newspaper or a book, he was holding a yellowing envelope.    
“Crowley,” he said, which felt oddly formal for their second conversation on a Wednesday, so Crowley set the trowel he was holding down on the workbench. “Can I read you something? It’s from long ago.”   
“Of coursse,” he said, taking off his gloves as he walked over to Aziraphale. He looked at him expectantly until he realized that he wasn’t intending to go back inside, so instead he pulled out a chair for him.   
There was a tension to Aziraphale’s shoulders that Crowley didn’t particularly like. It wasn’t usually one that happened around Crowley. He sat down next to Aziraphale, rather than opposite where he would usually consider his seat in the morning.   
The envelope was blank and unsealed, Crowley noted as Aziraphale opened it and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside.  
_ "Soho, London, 1799. Dear Crowley,”  _ he started. There was something light in his tone, as if he was breathing just the bare amount he needed to speak.  __ “It has been a while since our paths crossed last, but I wish for you to know that I have finalized the work needed to open up my bookshop, probably sometime next year. It could from that point potentially serve as another meeting spot for when we need it. Yours most humbly affectionate, Aziraphale.”   
Crowley looked on as Aziraphale drew in a breath, folded the letter up, and tucked it back into its envelope. He didn’t ask how many of these letters that there were, or how long they dated back, he didn’t ask what made Aziraphale write them. In some ways, he believed that he understood. When you only have a singular being as old as you, who has seen the same places and tasted the same air, one will occasionally want to fill the space that their absence left with something.   
“Let’s take a walk, shall we?” Crowley said.   
Aziraphale nodded, appearing relieved at the lack of questions. He stood, tucking the letter into his inner pocket, while Crowley wished away the dirt on his gloves. 

It started raining as they crossed the bridge over the river but when Crowley conjured a black umbrella and offered to Aziraphale he simply shrugged and kept walking. Crowley kept the umbrella folded as he fell into step. His hair was flattening out against his scalp and the back of his neck was cold without a scarf. Raindrops, like crystals, clung to the blonde curls at the nape of Aziraphale’s neck.   
The angel was quiet, but not wistful. There was a pale blue determination to his eyes, and he smiled into a forming puddle. Crowley tipped his head back a little and let the rain scatter over his glasses and then disappear. Aziraphale grabbed his coat sleeve as they turned back home. 

When they got back to the cottage, Aziraphale got a fire going in the sitting room and Crowley curled up by it, wrapping himself in every blanket he could find in the room. He’d made sure he wasn’t wet, but he could still feel the chill of the rain like a tension under his skin.   
Aziraphale was humming as he exited the kitchen and set down a mug of hot chocolate next to Crowley on the floor before settling down in the rocking chair.  Hamlet appeared from behind the sofa and hopped onto Aziraphale’s lap like a black flash of light, and Crowley wondered if it was petty to be envious of that ease. 

* * *

There were times when Crowley worried. When someone in a grey coat, seemingly too fine for their humble village, had passed by the garden wall more than once in a single day. Those days he kept indoors, somewhere he could watch Aziraphale cook or knit, just to make sure that he wouldn’t return to find an empty cottage and Aziraphale gone. It had always been part of the problem that there were ways Crowley could lose Aziraphale and not know how to get him back.    


* * *

A particularly dreary November day, at the end of a particularly dreary November week, Crowley attempted to walk out into the greenhouse to re-pot some of the indoor plants but decided against it halfway across the rain-heavy lawn. He marched back inside, past Aziraphale in the kitchen (the angel paid him no mind while checking the consistency of whisked egg whites) and headed back upstairs where he rolled himself into his blankets. Perhaps he needed to ask Aziraphale to make him a sweater.   
Ideally he would get his laptop, but the living room felt far away and he wasn’t sure that the situation warranted a miracle. Something sharp lodged between his ribs between the blankets and he grasped at it, finding the familiar smoothness of a cream white feather.   
“Oh hell,” he muttered, sitting up and unfolding his wings.   
They felt tight, his muscles tense from not stretching them in a very long time, and he carefully spread them each in turn. They looked more unruly than usual, and with how many of them were out of place he understood where the shedding came from. To a certain point, how his wings seemed didn’t matter, but at this time it was starting to look like neglect. Which, he thought, wasn’t too far off after all. He hadn’t properly preened since before the apocalypse that did not happen. 

No one had ever really taught Crowley how to tend to his wings. It was expected of a demon to do so, and most of the ones he knew did. But Crowley had walked the earth for six millennia and lacked the mentors and siblinghood of the others. What he knew was brief, intuitive and it didn’t fit the current state of his wings. He had let them get too far out of hand this time, and grew frustrated fast, all the details and fine work of it.   
“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice came from the doorway.  
Crowley shuddered and didn’t look up. Soft thuds of footsteps approached the side of the bed.   
“Let me?” He was so quiet that it wouldn’t even pass as a whisper.   
A long moment passed as Crowley considered it. He closed his eyes.   
“No one’sss ever…”   
“I know,” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley didn’t usually linger on how well Aziraphale knew his past. It wasn’t an assumption, this, he seldom did assume, no he knew. If it were from something Crowley had drunkenly said out loud, or something he had left unguarded, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Aziraphale sat down next to him, and Crowley waited, head tipped forward.   
“It’s alright. I’ll be gentle,” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley didn’t protest the reassurance.   
The first stroke of Aziraphale’s fingertips against the base of his wings was a rush of sensation and Crowley shuddered. Aziraphale seemed to understand, and Crowley supposed that he should. His touch became more solid and assured as he started to go through the scapular feathers, slowly working his way outward. The two of them were quiet while Aziraphale worked through his left wing, Crowley didn’t even bother with breathing. He would have expected Aziraphale to fuss or complain over his lack of grooming, but the angel didn’t utter a single question, didn’t even hum to himself like he usually did when in deep concentration. Crowley wondered what he was thinking about in the stretch of silence. He felt less tense by the moment, if he closed his eyes, it almost felt like second nature.   
Crowley didn’t like the thought of the hypotheticals of time before he fell, but hanging his head, feeling Aziraphale’s careful but certain fingers comb through his feathers, he wondered if these wings had ever felt this kind of tenderness before.   
“Good as new, dear boy,” Aziraphale said after an unclear amount of time. His voice was still quiet, barely there. His fingertips were still resting on the base of Crowley’s wings.   
Crowley turned and was happy for the sunglasses. “Thank you, Aziraphale.”   
“I do think it’s time for tea,” Aziraphale said. He had an odd look to his face. As if he’d want to be beaming, but was keeping himself from it.   
Crowley felt a loss when Aziraphale pulled his hand away, and he instantly tucked his wings back in to think of it less. 

* * *

The December afternoon was decked with garlands of mist. Crowley was picking chives and winter salad for Aziraphale in the greenhouse, watering the still tender perennials he had placed in there to make sure they lived to see spring. He had tried to cut down on the yelling after all, at least while Aziraphale was around.   
He felt Aziraphale approach long before he made it into the greenhouse. There was a vibrant contrast of Aziraphale in a good mood (he had made some stunning eclairs the evening before and was still enjoying the fruits of his labour) to the sky that was so pale it appeared white. The sun had not appeared from under its cloudy blanket for days, but Aziraphale felt like it.   
“Afternoon angel, are you here to tell me I’m  _ tardy _ again?” Crowley asked. He nodded to the bowl with salad leaves and chives.  
“Well, no, not today,” Aziraphale smiled mischievously in a way that still struck Crowley as impossibly appealing. He reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope that he waved back and forth. “I found this, I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Crowley had learned that there were more letters. Some of them straightforward, some like journal entries from the past, connected to a time they had met or some years when they didn’t. Aziraphale showed up with them early mornings in the greenhouse, or late at night when Crowley was watching the TV with the sound muted. He didn’t know where in the cottage Aziraphale kept them or where they had been before and he didn’t ask. Not for lack of curiosity, but because he knew that Aziraphale was revealing a part of himself, bit by bit, a side he appeared to have a hard time with. The one who had, as much as their beings could handle, missed Crowley when he was gone. It was the same part, Crowley thought, that had asked him to come here, to settle down, not only in a place smaller than London, but sharing the same miniscule space. Six millennia of knowing was a comfort in the face of the rest of time.   
A few letters down the line and Crowley couldn’t even consider admitting such a thing to Aziraphale, true as it may be for him as well. He understood. 

“It’s a short one,'' Aziraphale said when Crowley started to move over to the table and chairs. He stopped and they remained standing, fairly close, but not positioned so that Crowley could attempt to read ahead. As Aziraphale unfolded the paper, there was a certain seriousness to him, an air of calm as if he was preparing to hold a grand speech. Crowley wasn’t quite sure what to expect.   
__ “Stockholm, 1774, Dear Crowley, I am writing to let you know that I am very cross with you, the reasons for which I will disclose fully the next time we meet face to face. Kind regards, Aziraphale.”   
“Ouch, angel, kind regards?” Crowley said, with exaggerated emphasis. “1774… What’s it even about?”   
“Oh goodness knows,” Aziraphale huffed. The smile was back on his lips, dancing back and forth in the line of his mouth.   
“You don’t remember?”   
“Do you?”   
“Not at all! I barely remember Stockholm! Cobblestone, back then, right?” Crowley was in a state between amusement and genuinely trying to find just the slightest recollection as to what could have upset Aziraphale enough to resort to signing a letter with ‘kind regards’. He sorted through various Aziraphale’s from that century. Aziraphale with miraculously clean shoes in a prison cell, Aziraphale approaching a London townhouse in a high-necked light blue dress and dainty hat with roses atop her perfect curls, Aziraphale as plain as he ever dressed at the window of a New York bar.  
“Cobblestone, yes.” Aziraphale said, with pause. “I wonder if I ever told you what's what.”   
Crowley smirked. “If you did, it sure didn’t leave an impression on either of us, but nothing new there.” His wit was rewarded by Aziraphale hitting him with the folded up letter.   
“Oh, you fiend.”   
Their eyes met, and Crowley cast his eyes down just as laughter trickled up their throats. Before long, Aziraphale was giggling helplessly until his eyes were tearing and the tip of his nose had gone bright pink. He appeared to have forgotten that he didn’t actually need to breathe and was gasping into the laughter. Crowley’s being burned warm and full, and he reached out and touched his thumb and index finger to Aziraphale’s jaw.   
“Hush, you’re not even that funny, angel,” he said, flashing the sharp end of a smile.   
It seemed enough to get the breathing on track, even if Aziraphale was still smiling, a hint of a laugh lingering at the right corner of his mouth. There wasn’t much more to it for Crowley, really, just the way Aziraphale’s laughter felt like champagne sparkle in his chest. He leaned in and kissed him. 

It was hard to condense six millennia of wishing into a single impulse of a kiss. It was even harder because as soon as it happened, Aziraphale flailed and pulled back, away from Crowley, losing his balance and having to catch himself against the glass pane. The wall shook with a rumbling, and Crowley couldn’t fathom the depth of green in Aziraphale’s eyes.   
“I best go make dinner,” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley bit his lip so hard he could taste metal and tar. He turned around, felt the gust of cold wind as Aziraphale neglected to shut the door.   
“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 


	5. PART FOUR: Winter

The frost came the next morning  
Crowley headed for the greenhouse with coffee in hand, but changed his mind the second he saw it. Instead, he stood for a while and watched the sheets of ice that had formed on the pond. Something was about to snap with the chill in the air.  
‘You go too fast,’ he thought. He hoped for a winter where the cold would stay for once.   
Dinner the night before had been a quiet affair, amicable as if they were acquaintances, as if they were still at a place where they talked about the weather and whatever was in the local newspaper that day. As if they had ever been just that. There hadn’t been any fresh salad, and no chives. Crowley had wanted to ask many things, ‘Do you want me to leave?’ ‘Did you know?’ ‘Does this change us?’. But Aziraphale kept skipping between topics of conversation as if it was hopscotch and Crowley couldn’t bring himself to regret.

He touched his fingertips to his lips. The ice floated veil-thin and glittering in the morning sun. It might melt come midday.   
In the beginning of feeling he had thought of it as a very mortal thing, but he knew better by now. A part of him existed with Aziraphale but nowhere else. He hadn’t intended to give it away in the first place, but it would be there always. There’d always be traces of heaven with Crowley, and there would always be traces of Crowley with Aziraphale.   
When the church bells struck, ringing in the day, he left the garden and ventured into the village. He dug his hands deep into the pockets of his black coat. It did nothing to aid him with the cold and lonely rigidity of his form. Had it not been for the weather, his stroll along the riverside would have been pleasant. But as it were it was just cold, his lungs felt thick with wet and he missed London in a way that made his skin feel too tight. While the city wasn’t for him anymore, he could long for parts of it. The benches he passed looked empty. 

The bells had long since stopped ringing as he paused by the surrounding wall and looked out over the graveyard. He couldn’t enter without making a scene, but he liked looking. The grass still sported a blue-hue, spiderwebs clung between gravestones and glittered with cold.   
It was strange, he thought, that even now he wanted nothing more than to speak with Aziraphale, to hear his voice, to feel-. It wasn’t a forceful realization, it had drifted gently into his mind. A hare raced across the graveyard and Crowley breathed slowly while the clouds rolled across the sun above.   
His feelings for Aziraphale were a closed circuit, a circular motion. Leading him back to the start over and over until he saw no difference between beginning and middle. Perhaps that was the truth of it. All points along the way were just as true at any given time. He loved Aziraphale in every way as a friend and confidant, like his own being, like something holy, like mortal lovers, like the world.  
“What if I have enough grace for you?” Aziraphale had said once, marvellously drunk, slurred and not quite sure what he was saying.   
“No one does, angel,” he had answered then. ‘For the both of us,’ he thought now. Aziraphale had always been everything Crowley enjoyed with goodness, and just enough of a bastard to tolerate. 

He headed back home. Hands still in his pockets but his limbs feeling looser, he cast a smirk at Mrs. Moss’, making distressed noises as she ran back and forth across her lawn with her fuchsias. The plants looked frail and shivering in the wind and it would appear that she had just happened to forget to move them into to her greenhouse. Crowley raised a hand in a cheerful wave, and she smiled back at him in the sharp manner of old ladies who do not actually mean you any well by it.   
  
Inside the cottage Aziraphale had made a fire and placed blankets and pillows on the ground. Crowley could hear him go about his work in the office above. He curled up next to Hamlet on the pillows and wrapped all the blankets around his shoulders. The warmth seeped into him slowly, and he tipped his head to the side, closing his eyes and opening the blankets to let Hamlet curl up against his chest. He hadn’t ever belonged anywhere before. 

It was dark outside but the fire was still going with the same crackle and light when Crowley woke up. Hamlet had slipped out of his arms and was nowhere to be found. The room smelled of roasted almonds and spices.   
“Good evening,” Aziraphale said, a faint rustle as he sat down. Like of feathers.   
Crowley squinted at him, cross-legged on one of the pillows. He had set down a tray between them, which, in hindsight had likely been what woke Crowley up. There were glasses of mint tea and two bowls of stew.   
“‘Evening, angel,” Crowley said. His voice sounded rough and strange even to himself.  
“I made tajine,” Aziraphale said. He picked up the nearest steaming bowl and smiled gently. “Did you have a good walk?”   
Crowley shrugged. “Didn’t even get to hiss at the furry devil-spawn.”   
“No, they’re out of town for the weekend,” Aziraphale said, his expression was soft. “I figured you’d be cold.”   
“I was,” Crowley said. Past tense. He smiled.   
Aziraphale said nothing. Crowley eventually picked up his bowl and grabbed a forkful of stew. It was rich, full of textures, sweet with figs and bright with saffron. They ate in silence for a while.   
“Crowley?” Aziraphale said at last. “Take me someplace, this week. Wherever you’d like.”   
Crowley may never have been burned, but he thought that he knew what it felt like. He nodded and shot Aziraphale a crooked smile. He couldn’t deny a truce over this, even if it stung to admit it.   


* * *

As the days passed Crowley felt the drowsiness of winter set deeper into his being, the rain-heavy air was soaking him with weariness to the bone. He’d need to rest soon, for a long time, winter always did that to him.   
Waking up was heavy, like walking through the desert. Heavy eyes, ragged breaths, a constant fuzz around his mind. Downstairs, there was the familiar rattle of breakfast being made in the kitchen. Upstairs Crowley stared up at the bedroom ceiling and dug his nails into his wrists.

  
Aziraphale didn’t appear to notice him as he leaned in the doorway to the kitchen. The angel was making very fluffy looking pancakes. The air smelled hot and buttery. Aziraphale’s hair had an extra curl to it in the heat of the pan, the tip of his ears a bright pink.   
‘I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve meant to call you beautiful,’ Crowley thought. The first time had been even before the wall, he knew that much. Aziraphale whispering softly to a sparrow, his lips close enough to nearly brush feathers. It was early in time, while Crowley was still figuring out which feelings, thoughts and words went where. But there was something about the angel of the east gate and how vulnerable he made himself before this bird, a thin shawl draped like a hood over his gold locks. His presence stopped Crowley on his way and made him change directions. Hovering a little closer, then wishing to be further away.   
“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, cutting through Crowley’s reverie. He had lifted his hand to his chest in a very mortal display of fright.   
Crowley found himself without a hitch, cocked his head to the side and smirked “Did you forget I live here, angel?”   
“Oh no, dear boy, I’m just surprised that you’re still up,” Aziraphale said.   
Something in his tone or maybe in his eyes sent Crowley into a whirl. He thought of ten long winters in a servant’s quarter in the US ambassador’s house. He thought of cinnamon teas and thick crochet blankets.   
“So am I,” he said, truthfully.   
“I’ll make you your coffee,” Aziraphale said, matter-of-factly. “Then, how about you show me one of those films you keep talking about?”   
“Don’t you have better things to do?” Crowley asked, blinking.   
Aziraphale surveyed him for just shy of uncomfortably long, then shook his head. “No, not today, dear boy.”   
It nagged at Crowley that Aziraphale was telling the truth. There were so many things remaining between them that he didn’t quite understand. He sauntered into the living room and turned the TV on. When he touched his fingers to his temples he realized that he’d forgotten the glasses upstairs. He remained standing for a couple of moments, considering, before he stretched out on the sofa, tipping his head back to greet Hamlet who approached along the backrest. 

* * *

Crowley drove them to Buxton.   
It wasn’t weather for long strolls along the ocean and the cold made him too tired for long travel by miracle. Aziraphale didn’t ask where they were going, he seldom did even on this side of the end times. It suited Crowley fine however, because it meant that they spoke of other things on the way. He made notes of inns they passed that Aziraphale had heard good things about, mapping them for future trips. Not until they were getting closer did Aziraphale share (still appearing of the belief that it was not their destination) how he had been to Buxton a few times to buy and sell books.   
By the time Crowley parked, Aziraphale had gone quiet, his eyes curious as they lingered on him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done something like it, or grander, before, so he didn’t address it, just stepped out of the Bentley and out to the street, willing the car to be safe and unnoticed. He couldn’t be bothered with the wheel boot. The passenger side door opened and shut behind him, the doors locking with a click as Aziraphale hurried to catch up to him. He muttered something about archangels while he jogged.   
“What was that?” Crowley asked. He was half-smiling, and Aziraphale did not seem to enjoy it, so he smiled wider.   
“You’ve got dreadfully long legs, my dear,” Aziraphale said, his face deceivingly calm.   
“That’s nicer than what I thought you were saying.” Crowley said.   
The bell above the shop door jingled when they entered. Crowley closed his eyes and breathed in the smell. It wasn’t quite like how he remembered Aziraphale’s shop, not quite as warm. But then he supposed it wouldn’t be. Aziraphale was clasping his hands together in eager excitement and Crowley held back a smile. He gestured “after you” at Aziraphale, who ventured into the shop in a way that made him look right at home. From what Crowley had gathered in the car, it had been at least a couple of decades, but the place was likely to have been mostly unchanged since. Bookshelves stood floor to ceiling, forming labyrinths at times and tucking visitors in at others. Sofas and chairs and fireplaces were fitted in between the rows and rows of books rather than decorating the rooms.   
Aziraphale dropped some coin in a donation box and made them each a cup of tea to bring along. While he perused, Crowley trailed behind him for a couple of floors, eventually growing bored and retiring to an inviting-looking chair with a footstool where he nursed his tea until Aziraphale came by with a couple of illustrated books on unusual house plants before leaving him to the books and a nap for another couple of hours.   
  
They sought out lunch which was about as one would expect from a town of Buxton’s size. But there was a fire going in one end of the room and Aziraphale kept pulling out one book after the other from his satchel, excitedly telling Crowley about each of them. He was too happy to notice that Crowley had to resort to a miracle or two to keep the angel’s drink cold and his food warm while he was talking about this rare edition and that. For most of lunch, Crowley just watched him talk, watched the dimples around his mouth and the way he gestured with his hands. The tenderness, old and familiar, laced Crowley’s vision and his lips. His own coffee grew cold with neglect beneath his hands.

“I’d missed that. Thank you, my dear,” Aziraphale said, voice laced with softness.   
They were on an afternoon stroll through the Pavilion Gardens. ‘It always was a garden,’ Crowley thought. The place felt muffled in the winter chill. People passing them huddled the way one does in the winter, the runners wore headbands and most of the dogs acted as if nothing was different from a month or three before.   
“Not as good as yours,” Crowley said quietly.   
“No shop ever will be,” Aziraphale said. “But that was always the point, I think. No shop could ever be just right. There were even days when mine wasn’t.”   
Crowley hummed. “Like when you had to do that thing where you re-do a catalogue?”   
“Yes, well, no… a little bit,” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley wasn’t used to non-committal answers from Aziraphale these days and frowned.   
“Is it that hard to explain to a non-shop owner?”  
“No,” Aziraphale said, while nodding his head yes. Realizing this, he let out a short laugh, sharper than how Crowley usually liked to hear them. “Yes, well, I suppose that answers that.”   
Avoiding the cold had been the right choice, and even now, even in his coat, Crowley was shivering. He had misplaced his gloves again, or possibly forgotten where they were altogether. Just as he was pondering whether it would be wisest to wish the old pair out of hiding or new ones into existence, Aziraphale took his hands between his own. At first, Crowley thought that Aziraphale had read his mind somehow, that he was about to create him something uncharacteristically (for Crowley) soft and warm. Instead, the angel brought his hands close to his lips, warming them with his breath.   
Crowley wanted to tell him so many things. So many that he’d have to ask for an eternity to say them all. He still didn’t know if that would be too much, too unfathomable. 

The dark had swept over them by the time they were in the car and headed back home. Crowley had always enjoyed motorways by night. The orange glow of streetlights, the vast unknown expanse of landscape in shades of black and grey far beyond. He kept the radio low so that he could ignore the Bentley’s selection a little easier.  __ You know I never could foresee the future years, you know I never could see where life was leading me.   
“Crowley?” Aziraphale said. He had been looking out the window for a while in comfortable silence.    
“Hmm?”   
“You know, I said to take me wherever you’d like.”  
Crowley tapped his fingers against the wheel. “Yes, angel? What’s your point?”   
There was a slight pause. “We’ve only done things I enjoy today.”   
Crowley didn’t answer. He turned his head, lowered his sunglasses and watched Aziraphale closely before pushing them back up his nose and turning to watch the road again.   
Aziraphale didn’t say anything to that but Crowley could swear that he felt the car get warmer.    


* * *

The phone screen read 14:47 and five days later than Crowley had intended to wake. The room around him came into focus too slowly. There was a gentle patter of rain against the window frame and Crowley sat up, knowing that if he closed his eyes, he would just fall back asleep. Winters always were like this for him.   
He climbed out of bed and flicked his wrist for whatever clothing came round first. The floor felt cold and drafty and he reached for a black scarf he had thrown over the back of a chair. Opening the bedroom door creaked in a way that was now familiar, but stepping out of it felt off. The cottage smelled as quiet as it felt.   
“Angel?” He called out, waiting for the familiar rustle from papers, or the clutter from the kitchen. There came no answer. The study was empty. “Aziraphale?” Calling felt odd, lodged in his throat as if his mortal form was remembering too well.   
He tried to walk slowly downstairs. The house was empty: the Bentley was in the driveway, the kitchen was tidy, the blankets on the sofa were folded. Neither Aziraphale nor Hamlet responded.   
Worrying was not something Crowley would admit doing often if he could avoid it. It hadn’t been for always, the bookshop burning, but Crowley couldn’t stand the  
idea of losing Aziraphale again. To think that it could be, and perhaps especially if it was, on the angel’s volition. Aziraphale, who knew Crowley could find him anywhere. There would be a finality to that, there would be an expectation not to be found. But Aziraphale couldn’t be gone.   
He called Aziraphale’s phone. It kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing. No one picked up, no voicemail kicked in.   
Sensing was hard when you were winter-worn and frustrated and working yourself up by the minute. There were traces of Aziraphale everywhere. Crowley remembered Anathema in the autumn. The love, ingrained and embedded into the cottage. He went outside and the rain wet his eyelids, not caring whether or not it should. The greenhouse looked luscious as always, the plants quivered upon his entry, the chairs by the table were neatly pulled in. Crowley felt hollow like the dial tones of the unanswered call. He stood next to the door, pushing his palmprint into the cool glass. Tried to focus on the mundane. How to make lungs work, blood rush, a heart pump. It didn’t change the feeling in his chest.   
He wandered back through the cottage, looking for a note in Aziraphale’s absence. Finding nothing, he checked and double checked that all of the books were still there. Breathing became easier. Maybe it was the books that Aziraphale would never leave behind. Maybe it was the smell of him, always the most present where the books were. Crowley paced but felt trapped, restless and uneasy. He called Aziraphale again and there was no answer. 

He felt it above anything, the shift in balance, and he rushed out into the village, looking around for what and how and where. And then, there he was, the angel, balancing an armful of boxes down the street from the village’s only bus stop, his blonde locks sticking to his forehead.   
“Aziraphale!”   
“Crowley! You’re awake!” He looked so happy to see him. He always looked so damn happy to see him. Near bouncing as he moved across the street, carefully avoiding the puddles. The closer he got, the more he frowned, his arms shifting around the boxes. “My dear, are you quite alright? Your-”   
“Where in hell’sss name-”   
“Christmas decorations,” Aziraphale said. His eyes were wide, blue with specks of gold.   
Crowley let out a laugh, one that sounded desperate and pained likely even to Aziraphale who looked at him in confusion. “It- You know… It doesn’t matter.”   
“Crowley?” Aziraphale said, placing a hand over Crowley’s.   
His hand was warm, even stained by raindrops, even when the tip of Aziraphale’s nose was blushing red in the temperature.   
‘You scared me, that’s all,’ Crowley thought.   
“I’m in love with you,” he said. The wrong order, but it was too late once it was out. He couldn’t miracle away words spoken to an angel.   
He had entertained the thought before, of course he had. Telling Aziraphale that he felt, how he felt. But he had always ended up in the same place, with the tightening in his throat as he thought of what would happen afterwards. What good would it serve Aziraphale, truly, if Crowley loved him? The idea of telling him had felt selfish, as if the only reason to say it was his own need to let it out. It wasn’t like that anymore.   
Aziraphale blinked, but didn’t move away. His hands still rested on Crowley’s.   
“But the truth is... more. The truth is that there’s no word in any language I’ve known to express it, because I feel it with all my being, angel, and the mortals don’t have an understanding of forever that matches ours. We’re not like anything else, Aziraphale, and I -, however you would like that for the rest of time I’d like that too.” He paused, closed his eyes on an exhale. “Just tell me where you want us to be, I’ll meet you there.”   
“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice was weak and quiet.   
“Yes?”    
“Would you kiss me again?”   
Crowley opened his eyes. “Aziraphale?”   
Aziraphale’s expression softened like he knew that Crowley heard him the first time. He took a step closer, reaching for Crowley’s hand, hovering, awaiting permission. Crowley bit his lip and let him. It felt like everywhere and everything when Aziraphale lifted his hand and cupped his cheek. The angel closed his eyes. The freckles had paled with winter but they remained. When Aziraphale stood on his tip-toes, their noses brushed.   
“Crowley, my most dear, my darling.”   
The words were warm on Crowley’s lips. He exhaled, very slow, and then he tilted his head to fit the both of them together.   
Kissing Aziraphale stung. He could feel it like a tingling that spread through his lips, skittered across his tongue. It was a good hurt, sweet and lingering, and Crowley sighed into Aziraphale’s mouth, lowering his chin to kiss him deeper. Aziraphale was breathing against him, his arms wrapping around the back of Crowley’s neck and holding on tight, his back curved with Crowley’s grip, pressing closer. It was six millennia of a kiss, enough and not, all at once. The sting didn’t go away, became addictive the longer it stayed in his mouth. He couldn’t feel the rain anymore, just Aziraphale’s warm breath, he couldn’t hear anything but the soft wing-like rustle of his hand in Aziraphale’s coat.   
“Yours,” Crowley said. The word sounded feverish.   
“Mine,” Aziraphale said. The word sounded steady. He lifted Crowley’s hand to his chest.   
‘Mine,’ Crowley thought, and Aziraphale smiled, leaning in closer to kiss his cheek. He had water droplets in his lashes and his hair looked like a field after a storm. Crowley ran his hand through it, and Aziraphale’s smile widened.   
“We’ve been telling each other for millennia,” Crowley said, after a long pause.  
Aziraphale nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It was silly, really, but I thought - in the greenhouse. I thought you were doing it for me. Because that’s what you always do. You show up and you’re exactly what I need. And I didn’t want -”   
“Angel.” Crowley rubbed his thumb over Aziraphale’s jaw.   
“This, this I wanted, but not for my sake. I’ve gone millennia without and could do with eternity because this-,” he placed his palm flat over Crowley’s chest. “I thought it doesn’t matter, truly, how it is, because it’s so much already. We’ve always been. But it feels right, out of my throat.” He paused, his fingers dancing over Crowley’s jaw and down his neck. “We’re here now and I like to think it’s when we should be.”   
Crowley turned his head and smiled against his cheek. “Yes. I’d think so, too.” 

“It’ll take a miracle to get these dry,” Aziraphale said as they set down the boxes of decorations in the entryway. Crowley smiled, and the wet cardboard was as good as new. They were still as they adjusted, as Crowley thought he wanted to reach for Aziraphale’s waist and pull him in, as Aziraphale’s chin tilted slightly upward but no more.   
“Tea?” Aziraphale said.   
Crowley nodded, gratefully, trailing Aziraphale to the kitchen, refilling the kibble in Hamlet’s bowl, handing Aziraphale their mugs, pouring the milk.    
On the sofa, Aziraphale tucked his feet under him. Crowley sat, which felt uncomfortable and odd but he no longer knew what space to fill. Finally, Aziraphale reached for his arm.   
“We have time,” Aziraphale said, to himself, almost. It made Crowley feel bolder, he leaned into Aziraphale and kissed him again. He wondered what it was that stung. Something holy, something kind, something graceful. When he pulled back, Aziraphale held his face in both his hands and brushed feather-light kisses against his cheekbones.   
“You should rest, it’s been eleven years since you felt like you could.”   
“Are you just telling me I look tired right now?” Crowley asked.   
Aziraphale laughed and leaned in, the bridge of his nose resting against Crowley’s cheek.  
Crowley tilted his head and their breaths mingled. Soft and warm. “Come to bed, Aziraphale,” he said. It was more of a question than a beckoning.   
The angel took his hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss. “Of course.” 

In the bedroom, facing each other, still clothed, still on top of the covers, Crowley drew Aziraphale close with quiet intention because it was the only way he could pretend that he wasn’t terrified. He balled his hands into Aziraphale’s shirt and felt the angel curve to fit with him.   
‘Don’t go,’ he thought, burying his face in Aziraphale’s chest.   
Aziraphale pressed a kiss to the top of his head. 

When he woke it was dark, and Aziraphale had moved his phone out of reach on the nightstand. Aziraphale had scooted himself up against the headboard, Crowley’s arms wrapped around his chest. His shirt was unbuttoned, his hair ruffled and his glasses sat low on his nose as he read.   
“Reading glasses in the dark, angel?” Crowley said. He sounded so hoarse that a few days must have passed since he was last awake.   
“Oh hush, my dear boy,” Aziraphale said, tutting as he turned a page before folding the book over his fingers and turned to look down at Crowley. “Old habits,” he said. “Do you need anything?”   
Crowley shook his head. “No, jussst-”   
“I know. I promised, I want to.” He kissed Crowley’s temple, and Crowley sighed, relaxing his head back onto Aziraphale’s collarbone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song The Bentley plays in this chapter is QUEEN's "You and I".


	6. EPILOGUE: Spring Equinox

Crowley stood atop the terrace. The gentle wind caressed his cheek, brushed the hair from his face and reminded him what awake, what alive felt like. He thought that he might like to grow his hair out again. Something longer this time.   
Behind him, there was a steady rush of water in a fountain. The earliest flowers swayed, forming carpets of white and blue and purple under trees, abstract splashes of colour in the shadows of shrubbery. It smelled like budding leaves, like warmth, like growing. 

“They were out of milk,” Aziraphale said.   
“You could fix that,” he pointed out, not needing to look and watch Aziraphale’s expression. Didn’t need to see it change when he willed the tea to Aziraphale’s preferred lightness. But he looked anyway. He might never tire of it.   
The coffee mug was warm in his hand, but Aziraphale at his side felt warmer.  
Aziraphale turned his head into Crowley’s shoulder, and Crowley lifted a hand to the angel’s head, brushing his fingertips through his soft curls. Tender, so tender. It was still new. It was still more than Crowley could have ever wished.   
They still hadn’t said everything they wished to. It would take them years to that, centuries even. Crowley didn’t mind. It felt more like a promise than a challenge. 

Aziraphale kissed the inside of his wrist. In the rosarium at the other end of the garden, a cream and burgundy chimera sprung into bloom, not minding that it wasn’t yet the season for such a thing.   
“What was that, angel?” Crowley asked with a low hum.   
“I said, everything’s coming up roses.”   
“Oh.” Crowley said, turning his hand to lace their fingers together. “Yes.” 

_ fin _


End file.
